Klaine Advent 2015 Expectation Fails Drabbles
by LilinasWrites
Summary: 24 drabbles (I hope!) in the Expectation Fails 'verse for the 2015 Klaine Advent Challenge. One for each day until Christmas. The title of the chapter will be the daily prompt. Details will vary according to prompts but remember this is a D/s soulmate 'verse!
1. Anniversary

**Anniversary**

 _"Met him on a Thursday and my heart stood still . . ."_

"Really Blaine? You're doing this again? It's an every-year thing now?"

 _"Da doo ron ron ron, da doo ron ron."_

"You do know that people celebrate the _date_ , right? Not the day of the week. No one celebrates the day of the week."

 _"The words on my wrist told me that his name was Kurt . . ."_

"It still doesn't rhyme, Blaine."

 _"Da doo ron ron ron, da doo ron ron."_

"Nothing rhymes with Kurt except blurt. Did your heart blurt? Then you could make it rhyme."

 _"Yeah, my heart stood still. Yeah his name was Kurt."_

"Actually you sort of did blurt. Maybe you could work on that for next year."

 _"And when he got me on my knees in my office . . ."_

"Without any actual help from you, you'll remember."

 _"Da doo ron ron ron, da doo ron ron."_

"You know I could get another half hour of sleep if you'd stop singing!"

 _"Knew what he was thinking when he caught my eye . . ."_

"Oh, you absolutely did not."

 _"Da doo ron ron ron, da doo ron ron."_

"And you never will if I have anything to say about it."

 _"He looked so quiet but my oh my . . ."_

"In what universe have I ever _looked_ quiet?"

 _"Da doo ron ron ron, da doo ron ron."_

"If you're going to wake me up early the least you could do . . ."

 _"Yeah, he caught my eye. Yeah, my oh my."_

". . . is make me some not-actually-our-anniversary coffee!"

 _"And when he made me jerk off while he held me . . ."_

"Oh my God! Neighbors Blaine! We have neighbors!"

 _"Da doo ron ron ron, da doo ron ron!"_


	2. Broadway

Broadway

"Kurt?"

"Hmmmm?"

Blaine stopped halfway through untying his bow tie and leaned across the couch to rest his head on Kurt's shoulder. "You looked amazing tonight."

Kurt shifted and pulled Blaine back against his chest. "I had to go all out. It's not every night I attend my soulmate's Broadway debut."

"Off-Broadway."

"Broadway, off-Broadway, what really matters is the smoke that came out of Rachel's ears when she realized you got there before she did."

Blaine laughed. He finished with his tie and unbuttoned his tuxedo jacket, but he was too comfortable in Kurt's arms to move enough to take either of them off.

"It was just dumb luck, really. And it's only a little part."

"You were wonderful," Kurt said.

"Were you really okay with it?"

Kurt's silence was all the answer Blaine needed. He twisted around to stare into Kurt's eyes. They were stormy gray in the low light.

"It's a play, Kurt. You know . . . I _know_ you know you're the only person in the world I'll ever want to get on my knees for. You've acted enough to know that it's all just pretend."

Kurt didn't respond. His fingers worried at the loose ends of Blaine's tie.

Blaine knew what to do. He pushed himself up off the couch, ignoring Kurt's "Where are you going?" He made his way into the bedroom and pulled open the bottom drawer of their big oak dresser. When he got back to the living room he dropped the purple satin pouch and its clanking contents in Kurt's lap.

"What's that for?" Kurt asked.

"Put it on me."

"Blaine . . ." There was a note of reproach in Kurt's voice, but Blaine could see the color of his eyes starting to shift; the clouds were already whisping away.

"I want you to. Lock me up." Blaine picked the pouch up again and pressed it into Kurt's hand, then straddled Kurt's lap and wrapped his arms around Kurt's neck. "Lock me up for the whole run. And then you'll know how much I'm aching for you – only you – even when I'm up there on my knees."

"It's a three month contract, Blaine." Kurt's protest was so obviously token Blaine had to suppress a laugh. The azure taking over his eyes completely betrayed him.

"You've been wanting to go longer, I know you have. And whenever you feel like you need to . . ." Blaine sought carefully for the right phrasing, ". . . remind us both of who owns me, you can take it off and torture me until balance is restored once more."

"What if it shows? Your costumes . . ."

"Please. Half the subs in the show are already in chastity. I'm sure they all assume I am too. After all, I belong to a very demanding dominant."

Blaine could feel Kurt's cock thickening against his own. He rolled his hips across Kurt's lap and bent down to trace Kurt's ear with his tongue. "Imagine," he whispered, "how much better all my sobbing and begging and _oh please masters_ are going to make you feel."

Kurt's hand tangled in Blaine's hair and tugged him away from where he was nibbling Kurt's neck. He stared at Blaine with eyes that were so close to the right color.

"I'm starting to feel better already."

"And don't forget, if everything goes well there's always the chance that they could extend."

Blaine had just enough time, before he was dropped to the side and pressed into the couch by eager hands that fumbled at his fly, to see Kurt's eyes flash the exact perfect shade of heart-melting blue that meant balance had indeed been restored once more.


	3. Competition

Competition

"Shirt!"

"That's one." Kurt's lips slipped over the head of Blaine's cock and down, down, sucking hard as he went.

Blaine raised his head off the pillow and watched his boyfriend bob down and up again, just once, slurping as his mouth popped off on the upstroke.

"Oh God that feels good."

"I imagine it does. It's been a while for you." Kurt smirked up Blaine from between his spread legs. "But if you want me to keep going . . ."

Blaine dropped his head back between his upstretched arms. "Okay. Kurt. Shirt. Shirt . . . um . . . flirt!"

"Very nice."

Blaine moaned his pleasure as Kurt's mouth made a second trip from swollen head to iron root of his turgid cock, and back again. But his moan turned into a whine when Kurt pulled away, leaving Blaine's dick to flop hard against his belly.

"Don't stop!"

"You know what you have to do."

"I can't think! Help me, please?" Blaine pulled on the cuffs that held his wrists to the headboard. A little pathetic struggling couldn't hurt.

"Um, no. I'm not the one who insisted there were _hundreds of other words that rhyme with Kurt_. That was you. You seemed so sure."

"I was sure! But when you do that all I can think about is . . . you doing that."

Kurt grinned at him. The evil genius grin that Blaine had come to fear in the very best way. Long fingers wrapped around Blaine's balls and caressed gently. "Let's make this more interesting. You have permission to come, if you can keep my mouth moving long enough to get you there."

It had been three weeks since Kurt had let Blaine come. Blaine was pretty sure he was saving up for their "real" anniversary next week. Which was a lovely idea but Blaine wasn't ever going to turn town a chance at a orgasm. "Oh shit, Kurt. Okay. Okay. I can do this." He could, Blaine knew, if only Kurt would stop tickling his balls like that so he could think. "Okay, Kurt, flirt, shirt . . . alert!"

Kurt sucked extra hard as he bobbed, until Blaine's eyes rolled back in his head. He was pretty sure he'd never felt this much pleasure in his life.

"Quirt!" Blaine panted. "Oh, that's a whip. I think I should get two for that. For context."

Kurt silently agreed, sliding hot fire up and down Blaine's aching cock . . . twice.

"Girt . . ."

"That's not a word."

"Sure it is. Past tense of gird. I girt my loins. You girt my loins with your mouth. And it was glorious."

Kurt considered. Blaine tried to look pathetic. Finally Kurt's head shook a sharp _no_ and his fingers wrapped tight around Blaine's scrotum and squeezed.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"Every game has consequences for a wrong answer, Blaine."

"I don't get a right of appeal?"

"What about you tied to the bed at my mercy leads you to believe that this is a democracy?"

"Fine." Blaine pouted, but just a little, because Kurt was still holding his balls. "Fine, then, squirt. Um. . . yurt! Concert. _Oh God_ , skirt. Fuck, I'm so close . . . Kurt, yurt . . . um . . . Burt!"

Pain from his balls stabbed through Blaine's core and forced his eyes open to focus on Kurt. "What?" he protested.

"Never say my father's name when my mouth is on your dick, Blaine. Never."

"But it rhymes!"

"I don't care. There are lines we do not cross. Ever."

Blaine's head fell back in despair. The pain had pushed his looming orgasm farther away, and left his brain rattled. "I was almost there," he whined.

"So think of more words."

"How am I supposed to think? That really . . . oh! Hurt! Hurt rhymes with Kurt. So very appropriately."

"Careful." Kurt's fingers flirted dangerously with Blaine's balls but his mouth made yet another gorgeous hot slide down Blaine's hungry cock.

Blaine couldn't bear to have him stop. He could do this, he knew he could. He had to. His brain searched for something, anything, to keep Kurt going. "Avert! As in I'd like to avert that ball-squeezing thing happening again."

Another stroke, so hot and tight it took Blaine's breath away.

Vert words. Yes. "Revert . . . culvert . . . subvert . . . _invert fuck!_ " Oh he was close again, his orgasm was right there, tight in the balls Kurt was still teasing, just a few more strokes.

Kurt's mouth lifted off as Blaine's voice trailed away.

"No, please!" Blaine wailed. His hips thrust up, searching for those sweet lips again. "Just one more, please!"

"Word?"

Desperately Blaine racked his brain. But it was no good. He'd completely run out of words that rhyme with Kurt. Two more would have done it. Three at the most. But he was done. He sobbed his frustration and pulled on his cuffs with much more intent than he had before.

"Well I guess that means I win!" Kurt popped off the bed and pulled open the toy drawer. When he turned back he was holding their smallest vibrator, the one that Blaine knew from experience would tease just close enough to his prostate to drive him slowly insane.

The evil grin was back as Kurt deliberately approached the bed. "Now I'm going to _insert_ this right where you want it, then maybe I'll leave you here for a while because I'm feeling like I want some more _dessert_ before I _exert_ myself by fucking you. Because I don't know about you, but this little game really turned me on."


	4. Day

Day

"Today?" Blaine asked.

Kurt snuggled back against Blaine's warmth and cracked his eyes open. The light spilling around the window curtain was still early-morning soft.

"Maybe," he said, with deliberate nonchalance, like he couldn't be bothered to give the matter much thought. Like Blaine's question and the need that drove it hardly registered on his radar screen.

Blaine spooned him tighter, throwing one leg over Kurt's thighs so that the skin-warm metal of the cage pressed against Kurt's ass. His fingers clenched against Kurt's ribs. He rocked his trapped and yearning cock into Kurt's body and sighed hot and shuddery against the back of his neck.

Kurt wondered if Blaine had any idea how much he could communicate with no words at all.

The breath that heated his neck hitched and broke and reverberated with an undercurrent of moan, but the sound was dark and ocean-deep, its frustration anchored by the weight of his desire. When Blaine was really approaching the breaking point all restraint was severed, the pitch went high and the balance fell closer to whine.

For now the war inside Blaine's body was still between his desire for release and his craving for unrelenting denial.

The unforgiving metal of the cock cage pressed and receded, pressed and receded – the gentle rhythm of Blaine tormenting himself. When Blaine was truly and properly desperate his overstimulated body avoided sensation. He would lay on his back, his legs spread so that his thighs didn't accidentally brush his swollen balls. He would moan and plead beautifully while Kurt's fingers explored, but he'd keep himself perfectly still; the impossibility of futile thrusting would become unbearable.

But now . . . now he still desired it more than he feared it.

The fingers clenching against Kurt's chest loosened, moved, slid up to stroke faint as the early light over his nipples, back and forth, back and forth, teasing them to pebbled arousal, then down, slowly, alert for any sign that they should stop, until they wrapped around Kurt's morning-thick cock and stroked him to full hardness. Blaine was always hungry for Kurt's orgasm, but when he'd been pushed to the very edge of endurance he never had the presence of mind to seek it out. No, desperate, he had to be taken and he would gasp with surprise when Kurt filled his ass or his mouth, as if he hadn't identified until that exact moment the only thing he longed for more than relief from his own torture.

But this morning he took what he wanted with deliberate intent.

Kurt grabbed Blaine's thigh to pull him still closer, tilted his head back against Blaine's jaw and hummed appreciation until the pleasure of the hand on his dick was too intense to allow sound.

As Kurt came down from the delirious heights of orgasm, Blaine's breath still shuddered against his neck, his cock still rocked into his ass, and his fingers still stroked, higher now, carefully avoided his softening flesh.

Oh yes, it was still much too soon.

"Today?" Blaine asked.

Kurt smiled at the light spilling around the curtain, slightly brighter today than it had been yesterday.

"Maybe."


	5. Escape

Escape

"Please!" Even through the tiny phone speaker the frantic desperation in the voice was as crystal clear as a Mercedes Jones high-note. "Please!"

"No, Kurt! She's your best friend."

"She's threatening to show the video Blaine. The video _of the birth."_

"Didn't she have a c-section? Do they let you bring video cameras into operating rooms?"

"I don't know!" Kurt hissed in his ear. "But I do know finding out could involve me seeing things that cannot be unseen and I am _not_ taking that risk."

"Then just tell her you don't want to see it."

"Gee, why didn't I think of that? This is _Rachel_ , Blaine. If _I don't want to_ was an option with her, I would have an entirely different and exponentially less humiliating set of high school memories. It is so not fair that you get out of this just because you have homework."

Blaine suppressed a sigh. "I have to present my dissertation topic tomorrow. It's a little bit of a bigger deal than homework."

"All you have to do is tell her you're sick or something and you need me. She loves you. She'll let me go if you tell her."

"Why can't you tell her yourself?"

Kurt didn't bother to suppress his sigh. "She'd never buy it from me. She knows me too well. She can tell when I'm lying. But you never lie."

"Exactly. I never lie. You like that about me. You prize my obedient honesty."

 _Yes! I found it!_ Blaine heard faintly through his phone. Then a high-pitched whimpering sound he was pretty sure came from Kurt.

"You're so right," Kurt said, and his voice took on a wheedling tone that Blaine trusted not at all. "But think about it. If you lie to Rachel then I can _punish_ you for lying. Tomorrow, obviously, after your faculty meeting. Think about it Blaine. We still haven't broken in that new flogger . . ."

 _Kurt! Get in here!_ Clearly Rachel's voice now, much too robust for a woman who had just given birth via major surgery.

Kurt made the whimper noise again.

Blaine took a moment to weigh his personal ethics against his physical situation. It was a short moment.

"Two days out of the cage," he said into the phone, "and an orgasm."

Kurt took his own moment. Blaine didn't know what he was weighing, but his moment was longer.

"One day out of the cage OR an orgasm," he countered.

"One day out of the cage AND an orgasm. Final offer." Blaine said as firmly as he could manage.

"Dear God, is standing up to pee really that important to you?!"

"And I still get the punishment for lying."

This time Kurt's noise was deeper, more frustrated, and it made Blaine shiver with the hope that maybe he'd earned a punishment for this negotiation too.

 _Kurt!_ Even louder now, an undeniable command.

"Done!" Kurt said.

"Put her on the phone."


	6. Fan

Fan

"Offsides! Offsides! NOOOOO!"

The thump of Blaine's ass hitting his seat was echoed by hundreds of others all around them. The bench shuddered, forcing Kurt's attention up from the Vogue in his lap. "What happened?"

"Finn got knocked down," Rachel said from his other side.

"Sacked," Blaine corrected. "He was sacked. Because the officials are COMPLETELY INCOMPETENT!" He was shouting again, but then so were most of the other people in the McKinley stands.

"So I shouldn't wave this?" Kurt indicated the little pennant he held in the fingers of one Italian leather fingerless glove-clad hand.

"Not this time."

Kurt lowered his eyes back to his magazine and flipped a page.

"Why are you even here?" Rachel leaned close to whisper in his ear.

Kurt turned and scooted closer to her on the bench. Not that it mattered. Blaine's attention was completely absorbed in the game. "Blaine has this whole thing about me not missing normal high school milestones because of him. And since there's no way we can go to the homecoming dance together, he decided we needed to come to the game instead."

Something must have happened on the field because Blaine and a few hundred other people groaned in unison.

Kurt glanced up at Blaine and lifted the pennant and his eyebrows.

"Not yet," Blaine said with a sigh.

An extra-cold gust of wind smacked into Kurt's face. He left the pennant in his lap long enough to adjust his Himalayan wool scarf higher around his neck. In his opinion, the opportunity to show off beautiful outerwear was the one saving grace of football.

"I don't understand," Rachel said. "Does he think you'd be going to football games and dances if you'd never met him?"

"You have no idea how often I've asked him that. At this point it's just easier to indulge him."

"I don't see why you can't go to the dance."

There was a collective gasp around them and Blaine leaned forward to the very edge of his seat.

"Because he's still terrified of any kind of _display_ in front of the faculty, or the students, or the freaking _janitors_ for all I know . . . I'm a little amazed he's even sitting with us." That was uncharitable, but it was cold and the bench was hard and Blaine couldn't hear him anyhow. The crowd noise around them was swelling again.

Rachel shook her head. "If Finn tried to . . ."

An explosion of sound drowned her out. Blaine and everyone else surged to their feet; the bench under Kurt's ass bounced with the sudden loss of weight. He squinted out at the field where someone in a McKinley uniform was running full-speed toward the goalposts, with an entire team of opponents hard on his heels.

"Kurt! Now honey! Wave it now!" Blaine reached down to grab Kurt's hand and pull him to his feet and he didn't let go but clasped their fingers tight together, raising Kurt's hand along with his own as the boy on the field dodged defenders on his way to the goal.

Kurt didn't even notice the Vogue slipping from his lap and dropping down between the bleachers to the ground below. He held tight to Blaine's hand, his pennant whirling like a wind sock in a tornado. When the player crossed the goal line and the stands went crazy, Blaine caught him up in a hug, then Rachel spun him around and hugged him, and from somewhere hands pounded his back, leaving him so breathless and pleasantly dizzy that when they sat back down he slipped his hand through Blaine's arm for balance without even thinking about it. Blaine, still focused on the game, squeezed Kurt's arm and leaned closer, instinctively offering his body for stability.

A poke in his side drew Kurt's attention to Rachel, who was grinning at him with a knowing glint in her eye.

So maybe outerwear wasn't football's _only_ saving grace.


	7. Guide

Guide

"You have to be kidding me."

"Sadly, no, it's all true. Too, too true."

"I don't believe it!"

Kurt tried to hand the next clean plate to Blaine, but Blaine was still holding the last one, staring at Kurt like he'd grown an extra nose. A purple one. With spots. "Now you know my deepest, darkest secret," he said as he reached around to put the plate on the shelf himself. "The shameful nadir of my career as a dominant."

Blaine just stood, gaping. "I don't . . . I didn't even know that was a thing!"

"I'm pretty sure that's a thing for everything." He maneuvered around Blaine's body, adding another plate to the stack in the cupboard.

"But how did you even . . .?"

Kurt shrugged. "I don't know, Blaine. I wasn't exactly thinking clearly. I was scared to death, to be perfectly honest. Desperate times called for desperate measures." He lifted the last clean plate out of Blaine's nerveless hands, put it away, and closed the cabinet door. "I can't believe I never told you about it."

"So when you . . ."

"It was in my bag. The entire time." He planted a quick kiss on Blaine's cheek and beelined for the couch; he'd been looking forward to tonight's episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills all day.

From behind him Blaine's voice floated, still faint with disbelief.

" _Domming for Dummies?!"_


	8. Hope

Hope

Possibility.

Blaine loved the cage with a dark and complicated fervor that both reinforced and challenged all the things he thought he knew about himself, his body, and his desire. He embraced its bondage and exulted in the control that it gave Kurt – control of his most primal instincts and urges. The cage shaped and reshaped him, outside and in, to Kurt's specifications, for Kurt's approval. It was the physical manifestation of Kurt's will, wrapped around Blaine's body, holding him in check. Reminding him that his master's pleasure was the true pinnacle of his own desire. Over time, Kurt had taught him to cherish his imprisonment, until just the sight of the cage in Kurt's hand could drop Blaine to his knees in overwhelming and irresistible submission. He loved the cage. But when Kurt pulled the fine gold chain over his head and fitted the key in the tiny lock –

Possibility.

In books and blogs and _those_ kinds of movies, the moment of release from a cock cage was invariably described with appropriately masculine imagery: rising, surging, thrusting. But as Kurt's gentle fingers worked the metal prison away from his cock, Blaine saw himself as a flower unfolding its petals under the burning gaze of the sun. Finally released, his swelling pleasure moved in every direction, in all three dimensions and some that hadn't been discovered yet. Like a flower, he drew Kurt's heat inside himself, igniting fires that flickered warm at first then hotter as Kurt's hands moved over him. He lengthened and stretched under his master's touch, until he was full. Full of fire, full of blood, full of helpless desire.

It was unbearably beautiful, his blossoming, but there was danger in it too. Danger that he would lose himself and miss the moment when he needed to pull back or cry out a warning. In the cage obedience was irrelevant; unyielding steel offered no choices. Being free meant being free to fuck up and Kurt's punishment for that most serious of infractions was too awful to be considered. And yet Blaine exulted in going as far as he possibly could. He offered his straining, yearning body to Kurt's excruciating adoration and he begged for more, for as much as he could possibly bear. Even when his eyes filled with tears and his breath came in gasping sobs, still he rutted against teasing fingers. Still he kept himself a whisper away from sweet and forbidden oblivion, only the iron force of his perfect obedience holding him back from what he craved. Because . . . because . . .

Because there was always the possibility that this time his master would desire Blaine's pleasure. Perhaps today would be the day this his willingness to suffer and ache and beg for more would finally be rewarded with the words he longed to hear and the release only his master could grant him. Perhaps today he would finally be allowed to wring and twist and fracture, his sobs transformed into cries of ecstasy, the inferno burning everything inside of him until he was spent and left to float like petals on the breeze, settling ever so gently back into his master's arms limp with exhaustion and utter relief. Today might be the day and if it was, Blaine would be ready.

Or perhaps he would instead be left to watch as the fire slowly, oh so very painfully slowly, receded, despairing but helpless to change his fate. And when his body had finally given up all hope, his master would slide the cage back in place just as gently as he'd removed it, and Blaine would shudder at the sound of the lock clicking back in place, and at the look in his master's eyes as he slipped the key on its chain back over his head. Then Kurt might gather him up in his arms and hold him until he stopped shaking long enough to sleep, or he might straddle Blaine's chest and fuck his mouth, or he might turn him over and take him with greedy abandon until his desire exploded to completion and Blaine was left trembling with need once again.

Possibilities.


	9. Indecent

Indecent

"Say it again."

Kurt smiled down at Blaine, spread out under him in the bed. He leaned close and pressed his lips against Blaine's ear.

"Six days," he whispered.

Blaine moaned.

"Every week."

Blaine's moan stuttered into a whine.

"For two months."

"Oh fuck!"

Kurt rolled off Blaine and onto his back. He really tried to suppress his laughter, but he was pretty sure the shaking mattress gave him away.

"I have never loved summer vacation more than I do right now," Blaine said.

"You should really be loving Carole. She's the one who got my dad to go along with it."

"I fucking love Carole."

Kurt's laugh escaped his chest and bubbled into the air between them.

"What?" Blaine asked.

"You. You don't usually curse this much."

Blaine rolled onto an elbow so he could look at Kurt. "You don't understand. It's like I'm watching porn, and it's my most perfect, dirty fantasy, except it's real and I'm living it."

"Summer vacation is your most perfect dirty fantasy?"

"No, silly. Time. Time with you. God, so much time."

Strange as it seemed, Kurt could hear it in Blaine's voice – the soft drift, the stretch of vowels, the loosening of consonants that was usually associated with conversations about rules or paddles or how long his next stretch of denial might be. It was most definitely weird, but that wasn't going to stop him from taking advantage of it. He pushed himself up, flipped Blaine onto his back and straddled him, trapping his hands above his head and settling his ass on top of Blaine's dick, which was indeed starting to harden. He pinned Blaine with his eyes – his attempts to look dangerously sexy were getting better if Blaine's reaction was anything to go by – and pulled his lips into his best evil smile.

"We can have sex . . . _and_ cuddle."

"Fuck yes," Blaine breathed.

"We can take showers together when we're not even dirty. Just because we want to."

Blaine moaned.

"We can wipe out the DVR queue and be forced to watch live television."

"Oh, God, don't stop."

Kurt leaned down and stroked his tongue along Blaine's stubbly jaw then teased their lips together. "We can _leave the apartment."_

Blaine whined and thrust his now-fully-hard cock against Kurt's ass. Kurt kept moving, mouthing down Blaine's neck and taking nips at the tender skin there.

"We can go to the movies," he said between bites. "And not even good movies. We can see all the good movies and then go to the bad ones."

"Crap, you're going to make me come."

"We can go to Breadstix and eat _all_ the breadsticks."

"I'm serious, stop!" Blaine bucked up to push Kurt off, but Kurt was already diving back to his side of the bed to muffle his laughter in his pillow. Blaine must have truly been serious, because he took a few calming breaths before he said, "Are you laughing at me?" in a tone of injured dignity that only made Kurt laugh harder.

"You are! You're laughing. I can't believe it."

Kurt had to pull his face out of the pillow so he could breathe. Blaine glared at him, mouth twisted in an exaggerated pout.

"I can't believe you're shaming my summer vacation kink."

Kurt swallowed his mirth just enough to grab Blaine and pull him down until their chests were pressed together. "Never. I love all your kinks. Now kiss me you idiot. And if you're very, very good I'll let you blow me while I recite all the recipes I'm going to make for us this summer."


	10. Jumble

Jumble

"Oh crap!"

Blaine struggled to turn his head. "Don't say that! That is literally the last thing I want to hear you say at this moment."

"More than 'it's turning blue?'"

"What?!" Blaine wriggled on his belly, but with one ankle tied to his wrists and the other pulled frog-style and bound shin to thigh, he really wasn't going anywhere. "What's turning blue?!"

"Relax Blaine! Nothing's turning blue. I was making a joke."

"This is so not the time to make that joke."

Kurt's hand pressed into the small of Blaine's back – one of the only spots on his body not bound in soft white rope. "Relax. This is not a big deal. Read me that last part again."

Blaine wriggled back again so he could see the paper propped on his pillow. "'Tuck the working end under the wrap and through the second loop,'" he read.

Behind him, Kurt was silent.

"Kurt?"

"I don't have a loop."

"The _second_ loop, it says."

"I don't even have a first loop. Crap. What did I do wrong?"

"Can you just work backward and untie me?"

Kurt was quiet long enough to set off alarm bells in Blaine's brain. "I would," he finally said, "but there's a knot where I don't think there's supposed to be a knot."

Blaine wriggled again. "Maye you should use the safety scissors."

"I think I might have gone left around your thigh when I was supposed to go right around your waist . . ." Kurt's fingers traced the rope as he spoke, searching out his mistake, Blaine knew, but his mounting sense of helplessness magnified his skin's sensitivity to the intermittent touch and he squirmed against the rope.

"Kurt."

"Hmmm?"

"Scissors?"

"Don't be a baby," Kurt said firmly. "Nothing's cold or the wrong color. We shouldn't ruin the rope unless we have to. I can figure this out."

Blaine should have probably been panicking. The rope was soft but inescapable; it held him fast, hands twisted in the small of his back, legs spread wide and chest wrapped tight. Yes, it had been his idea. Yes, he loved the feeling of being trapped in bondage, but he loved it when it was planned and orderly, not the tangle of wraps and loops he was hopelessly stuck in at the moment. He should definitely be panicking. Except it was hard to panic with Kurt's warm, sure hands on his body.

"Maybe if I . . ." Kurt muttered more to himself than to Blaine. He slipped something into a new position, setting off a chain reaction that ended with a completely different section of rope settling between Blaine's ass cheeks, pulled wide by the position of his legs. That alone made Blaine squirm again and the rope slipped soft yet rough over his sensitive hole. And _oh._

It was the tiniest of movements, barely an inch of slide, but it was exquisite. Each little bump in the rope's twisted texture rubbed at Blaine's most sensitive of places. He rocked his hips again, and yet again, arching his back to press harder into the fibers that teased him so intimately. Predictably, his cock started to swell until it bumped up against the length that wrapped his shin and thigh and then it was wonderful, trapped between competing sensations, allowed only the scant give of the rope to stimulate himself.

"This would be a lot easier if you'd hold still," Kurt said. He smacked a hand sharp on Blaine's ass and wasn't that just the perfect, perfect gift.

Kurt could give him permission to come, Blaine thought, just like this, with no chance of him actually working up enough friction to send himself over the edge. He could leave him to his ineffectual humping, laugh at his pathetic efforts, jerk off and spill his hot seed all over Blaine's straining body. He could tie him up like this every day; tell him that from now on this was the only way he was allowed to come. An impossible task, but Blaine would try anyway, again and again, overwhelmed by frustration, sure that _this_ time he'd find a way to push his aching cock over the edge . . .

"I got it!" Kurt crowed.

And suddenly Blaine was free. Not completely free, but his legs fell away from his hands, his body rolled against the mattress and his cock and ass both lost their rough stimulation. "Nooo," he moaned into the bed before he could stop himself.

"What did you say?" Kurt rolled him onto his back, because his hands were still tied. The beautiful rope bunched under his body, limp and useless.

"Um . . . no?" Blaine said.

Kurt's eyes raked his form, taking in his flushed skin and his upright cock. "I thought you wanted me to get you out?"

"I did." Blaine did his best to look pathetic. Submissive and pathetic. "But then wanting to get out and not being able to get out . . . and the rope . . . well I just . . ."

Kurt's eyes narrowed, but he snatched the paper from the pillow next to Blaine's head. "This time," he said, "I read the directions."

Which, this time, was just fine with Blaine, no matter how tangled things got.


	11. Kink

Kink

Kurt woke up early, before the alarm, which was why he was sitting on a stool at the kitchen island already halfway through his first cup of coffee when he heard the bedroom door open and feet shuffle through the living room. He didn't look up from the newspaper, but he smiled at it when Blaine's arm wrapped around his waist and his bed-warm body draped itself over Kurt's back. He didn't need to see to know exactly how Blaine must look, sleep-rumpled and lax. Soft lips pressed a kiss to the spot where Kurt's neck met his shoulder, mumbled against the skin there.

"Good morning, master."

Kurt looked up then, watched from the corner of his eye as Blaine's arms slid away from his waist and a curly head bobbed into view, tipped to one side, drawn like a moth on a summer night across the room toward the caffeine. Blaine fumbled at the coffee pot and when he turned back to Kurt, steaming mug in hand, his eyes were still gentle and unfocused, not quite awake.

Kurt kept silent as Blaine returned to the island for cream and sugar then lifted the cup and breathed in the scent of the coffee, moaning at the aroma. He closed his eyes in blissful abandon and sipped.

"What was that for?" Kurt finally asked.

Blaine opened his eyes. They were still golden soft with sleep, but the fog was starting to thin. "Coffee is the third great love of my life. You know that."

"Not the coffee. Before."

"Before?" Blaine set his cup on the counter and reached for the front page of the paper.

"Blaine."

Blaine's eyes, much clearer now, lifted to Kurt's and one eyebrow pulled up in question.

"You called me master," Kurt said.

Now both Blaine's eyebrows knit together in the middle of his face. "I did? When?"

"Just now. When you said good morning. You called me master."

The eyebrows danced up again and Blaine's eyes sparkled, now fully awake. "I don't even remember doing that." The corners of his mouth twitched like he was trying to suppress a smile and he retreated behind another sip of coffee.

Kurt almost wanted to smile back. It was endearing, the way Blaine was so obviously pleased with himself but also concerned about how Kurt was going to handle his slip. He might have smiled back, if he wasn't hovering so close to total panic. "You've never done that. I mean, you've never done that when we weren't . . . you know." It was silly not to just say _having sex_ , Kurt knew, but suddenly he was feeling very much like the boy who'd had to practice saying cock in his bedroom mirror. Unsure. Inexperienced. More than a little scared.

Blaine was not having the same problem. His smile finally won out over his concern and blossomed, lighting up his face in the way that only true delight could, and in all their time together Kurt had never been able to stand aloof in the face of Blaine's delight. He didn't smile back, but he also didn't move as Blaine came slowly, seductively around the island. Kurt picked up his coffee cup and held it between them like a shield, but Blaine stopped when his thighs came in contact with Kurt's knees, drawn up on the stool.

"Did you like it?" Blaine asked, soft now from something that definitely wasn't sleep.

"We talked about this Blaine. Back in Lima, when we did the kink list and you brought it up and we agreed we would be careful and not take it too far because we always want to be Kurt and Blaine. We agreed on that. And the fact that it can happen without you even being aware of it, I just . . . it just makes me . . ."

While Kurt babbled, Blaine took the coffee cup from his hand and moved it back to the island, then sidestepped Kurt's knees and shut him up with a kiss, soft and gentle, coffee warm and sugar sweet.

"But did you like it?" he said again.

There was no way to hide from those eyes, so close, always honest.

"Yes," Kurt breathed.

Blaine smiled again. "Good."


	12. Legend

Legend

"Can I ask you something?"

They were cuddled together on the couch, Blaine nestled in Kurt's arms. His weight pressing heavy on Kurt's chest made Kurt feel, as it always did, strong and in control. Capable. Trusted. Which was probably why that was the moment when he finally worked up the courage to ask.

"You can ask me anything, you know that," Blaine said, without even lifting his head from where it was cradled in the hollow of Kurt's shoulder.

"I know. But this is . . . you don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

Blaine, of course, sensed Kurt's conflict immediately and lifted his head enough to smile at Kurt. "Just ask. I don't have any secrets from you."

Kurt knew that was true, but his heart sped up anyhow. "What did he do to you?"

Blaine frowned. "What did who . . . oh." Realization dawned in his eyes, and with it wariness. "You mean Kev."

It wasn't a question, but Kurt nodded anyhow.

Blaine put his head back down. His loose curls ticked at Kurt's chin. "What brought this on?" he asked softly.

"I guess because we're leaving soon and starting a new life, in New York, I've been thinking a lot about how it all started. Those first few days and everything that happened. I'm not upset, I promise. I mean, if you think about it, we actually owe him a lot because he gave you that push to –"

"Kurt."

Kurt forced himself to take a breath. He knew he was babbling. He also knew Blaine was all in, one hundred percent his forever. But when he thought about that day in the coffee shop and the way Blaine had looked at Kev, like he _wanted_ , like he wanted so badly . . . and then his silence in the car afterward. Kurt knew that his punishment and the connection they'd achieved in its wake had been deeper and more profound than anything Blaine could have shared with Kev or anyone else. But his brain wouldn't let it go. He hated himself for it but he needed to know what extreme and kinky activities had so imprinted on Blaine's memory that he would have risked their budding relationship.

"He beat me," Blaine's voice startled Kurt out of his own head.

"What?"

"Kev. He had a bondage cross in his bedroom and he tied me to and he beat me." Blaine kept his head on Kurt's chest and his voice was carefully neutral. "With a leather strap. And when I begged him to stop he kept going, until I was sobbing with the pain."

"You didn't safeword?"

He felt Blaine's head shake against his skin.

"Then he took me down and made me blow him. Then he teased me until he was hard again and he fucked me. Then he blew me, until I was begging to come, and then he let me."

Blaine stopped talking and Kurt let silence linger between them, processing what Blaine had told him.

"That's it?" he finally asked.

"That's it."

"But . . . I did more to you than that on your birthday."

"Yes you did."

"I tortured your balls, and I didn't even let you come."

"I remember it well."

"Then why –"

Blaine moved then, sitting up and twisting around until he was straddling Kurt's waist. He smiled, and there was none of the conflict or distress Kurt was expecting to see in his face. His eyes were full of only love.

"Kurt you did more to me that afternoon with the spoon."

"I don't understand."

"The things you did, you did to _me_. With _me._ Kev was having a great time with the submissive who happened to be willing to go home with him. And so was I. I won't lie, it was amazing. He rocked my world. But it could have been anyone. It _was_ anyone, for me back then. You're my soulmate."

"Then why did you –"

"Because I was stupid. No, that's not right. I didn't understand. I thought that because you said you weren't ready to beat the everloving crap out of me or fuck me into oblivion or whatever, that you wouldn't be able to give me what I needed. Because that's all it was to me, until you showed me how wrong I was. Don't ever, ever, think that anything Kev did could ever compare to you. By the time we went to bed that night, you were more my dominant than Kev ever could have been. You can't even imagine the peace I felt, falling asleep in your arms, hard and denied and mastered. And if I haven't made that clear to you before now then I'm . . ."

For once it was Kurt who had to pull Blaine down and shut him up with a kiss.


	13. Moon

Moon

Kurt didn't even wait for the door to close behind them before he spun Blaine around and trapped him against it; the force of Blaine's body shoved it home with a slam that reverberated through him and into Kurt, pressed tight against his back.

"Did you think I wouldn't see, boy?"

Blaine's stiff surprise melted like snow in a furnace and he collapsed against the door, Kurt's grip and his leg between Blaine's thighs the only things holding him up.

Kurt smiled. With finals and job searches and photoshoots, it had been too long since they'd had a chance to do this.

"Well?" Kurt demanded, keeping his voice cold and aloof. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I don't know what you mean, sir," Blaine said meekly. He'd needed this even more than Kurt had anticipated; his consonants were already started to bleed into each other.

"Don't you?" Kurt accused, pressing his lips to Baine's ear. "The dom at the table by the door. I saw you wiggle your ass for him when we left."

"No, master –"

Kurt pressed his thigh up hard against Blaine's ass. "Are you calling me a liar boy?"

Blaine moaned. He ground down against Kurt's leg as best he could in his constrained position. "No, master, I would never –"

"So you _did_ wiggle your ass at him."

"No, please sir, _please._ " Blaine arched his back and begged with his whole body. It didn't matter that his words didn't make sense, he was already beyond sense. Want had completely taken over.

It had definitely been much too long.

Kurt pulled Blaine's hands up above his head and ground harder. His knee had to be shoving painfully against Blaine's balls but Blaine rode it anyhow, groaning at the stimulation.

"I think this ass needs to be reminded who it belongs to," Kurt hissed in Blaine's ear.

Blaine was panting hard against the door. "Oh God, please. _Please._ "

Kurt let go of Blaine's hands but they stayed where he'd put them, pressed into the door above his head. He reached for Baine's fly – not trying to be gentle, he knew Blaine wanted it rough now – and jerked his jeans and underwear down to his thighs. Blaine's cock sprang up already full and eager and even in the darkness of their living room his winter-pale ass seemed to glow. Kurt ran his fingers down the crack and Blaine hissed and arched even more.

The first slap stung Kurt's hand but he didn't care. Blaine's breath caught, and on the second slap he moaned and then Kurt backed off enough to use both hands, one on each cheek in quick succession, over and over until the ringing smacks drowned out even Blaine's desperate noises, until his hands were burning. He ignored his own pain because he needed this as much as Blaine did; because there _had_ been a dom, who'd looked, and it didn't matter that Blaine hadn't actually courted the attention – hadn't even known that the man existed. He'd _looked._ At what belonged to Kurt.

Fortunately, Blaine was only too willing to suffer for that unknown dom's sins. As Kurt brutally marked his possession, Blaine rocked back to meet every blow, then fucked forward against the door, shuddering with need. Kurt punished Blaine until his ass was blood-moon dark and he was gasping into the wood, beyond sound, lost completely in sensation. When Kurt finally stopped and covered Blaine's body with his own again, he could feel him quivering from head to toe. Gasping broke into a whine when Kurt's hand found Blaine's cock and wrapped tight around it.

"What's this, boy? Are you getting off on being punished? You really are an insatiable slut, aren't you?"

Blaine's head fell back on Kurt's shoulder. "Yes, God, yes master. Please." His hips jerked, trying to fuck into Kurt's fist.

"Uh-uh," Kurt tutted. Blaine's cock throbbed against his grip.

Blaine's head turned and his lips found Kurt's neck. "Please. Please let me . . ."

"Disobedient boys don't get come. Disobedient boys get to suffer until their master decides they've learned their lesson."

Blaine groaned again, and it was beautiful, so Kurt rewarded him with two slow strokes of his cock that made Blaine wail. "I think you'd better stop worrying about what you think you need and start worrying about how to make up for your unacceptable behavior."

Blaine knew a cue when he heard one and barely had Kurt stepped away before he was turned around and on his knees, his jacket still on, his jeans and briefs still hobbling his thighs. His eyes, now that Kurt could see them, were wide with Blaine's special flavor of submissive bliss and he hissed with pain as his ass settled on his heels but he reached for Kurt's fly anyhow, mouth agape and ready to serve.

Oh yes, Kurt thought as Blaine sank hot and wet onto his length. It had been much, much too long.


	14. Number

Number

Blaine was a mess. No, that was an understatement. Blaine was one useless, shameless begging desperate wreck of ravenous submissive, naked, pulled in the tightest spread-eagle Kurt could achieve on their wide bed, the sheets under him damp with the sweat he'd worked up during the hour he'd been writhing on them.

Two vibrators had been torturing him during that endless hour. The egg was in his ass, nestled against his prostate, buzzing just enough to make him arch and thrust in a vain attempt to rock it harder into his sweet spot. Impossible, Blaine knew, but his body had stopped asking his permission to move ages ago. The other vibe was a ring clasped tight around his glans; it was on the lowest setting, just enough to completely torture the most sensitive spot on his body. Although every so often Kurt would turn it up until Blaine was sobbing with the pleasure and begging him not to stop. Of course he always did stop, and the despair Blaine felt as he watched his long-awaited orgasm fade away was equaled only by the gratitude he felt to Kurt for allowing him to suffer so exquisitely.

"How do you feel?"

Blaine opened his eyes. Kurt leaned over him, blurry, he had to blink to bring him into focus. "It hurts so much," he mumbled. He hoped Kurt could understand him; the words made no sense to his own ears. "It's incredible."

Kurt smiled and brushed sweaty curls off of Blaine's forehead. Blaine turned into the touch, longing for even that gentle caress. "This is why I didn't take the cage off those last three weeks. You're so sensitive I could just . . ." He swirled a finger in the precome pooled on Blaine's belly and circled the swollen head of his cock, so light, lighter than air but Blaine cried out and thrust, his body begging for more. The moment he moved Kurt's finger was gone.

"None of that, baby. You know better. I decide what you get."

Blaine forced his ass down and Kurt rewarded him with one more caress on his aching cock head. He managed to stay still this time, but his eyes filled with tears as the gesture sent another wave of not-quite-enough pleasure through his body. "Please," he entreated, "it's been so long. So fucking long, I can't stand it."

"It has been long, hasn't it? A new record for you."

Four months. The entire run of Blaine's show, including the extension that he had thought he'd never survive. And maybe because it had been Blaine who'd insisted on being locked in the first place, Kurt had been inspired, inventing new and ever more excruciating ways to torment him. Five shows a week Blaine had knelt for his pretend dom and Kurt had made him pay for each of them in sweat and tears and an endless flow of precome. Culminating with that final stretch of round-the-clock incarceration that had left Blaine starving for any kind of sensation on his poor, imprisoned dick. Well he was getting that sensation now. And he was pretty sure it was going to kill him.

"I think we could go for six months next time, don't you?" Kurt asked, his voice full of mischief. He stroked the head of Blaine's cock again and Blaine tried so hard to be still but his body betrayed him. His ass lifted off the bed Kurt's finger was gone again.

"No, please, please I'll be good, don't stop I need it so much, God Kurt, please . . ."

Maybe it was the tears, but Kurt took pity on him. The finger came back, circling in a steady rhythm now, again and again. As each dizzying tease built upon the last Blaine wasn't sure if he was in paradise or the seventh circle of hell. Technically, he'd had permission to come since they'd woken up that morning and Kurt had told him today was the day. He was _allowed_ to come, but whether he could actually get there was a completely different question. And Kurt had spent the next eight hours playing Blaine's body brilliantly, using the accumulated knowledge of their years together to make sure that Blaine constantly felt the possibility without ever managing to achieve release.

Blaine's eyes had fallen closed again so he wasn't at all prepared for Kurt's mouth closing over his throbbing cock. A cry tore from his throat as Kurt sucked, _hard_ , and the vibration of the glans ring made Kurt's mouth and lips and _dear God_ his tongue vibrate as they moved with sudden determined purpose over Blaine's turgid flesh.

"Oh, God, oh God Kurt I'm so close, please, please let me come, I can't stand it, I can't stand it please don't stop, _God I'm going to come_ . . ." Blaine babbled for all he was worth; his balls pulled tight, ready to burst, Kurt's mouth was the only thing that existed in the whole universe – until it was gone and Blaine sobbed his frustration and pain as his balls clenched violently, uselessly, yet again.

"That was nine." Kurt's voice was suddenly right in Blaine's ear, maybe in Blaine's head, maybe Kurt hadn't even actually spoken, he had no idea anymore. He was pretty sure he didn't exist anymore, except as the energy of pure, agonizing need. He was crying freely now; the tears burned hot on his temples as they fell. His body pulled and twisted and thrust, completely beyond his control. He was going to die. He was going to die of frustration, spontaneously combust, leaving nothing behind but damp sweat on the sheet and the echo of a plea in the air.

"So good, Blaine, the way you suffer for me. So good for so long. But it's almost over now. This time I'm going to let you go, I promise. Try not to break the bed."

Then Kurt's mouth was back, sucking like his life depended on it, and then both vibrators sped up to unbearable intensity and Blaine wanted to beg, he wanted to tell Kurt that if he stopped him this time it would break him, he'd never recover, but he could only sob and shout as he was driving relentlessly toward the orgasm he'd longed for forever. And in a moment of eternal perfection it finally crested and broke, violent, crested and broke, tearing, over and over, pulling him apart, he lost count of the peaks as his balls spasmed and forced spurt after spurt of semen into Kurt's mouth. He could _feel_ Kurt swallowing and that pushed him higher; it was ecstasy like he'd never experienced in his life and he'd been so wrong before. This, _this_ was what was going to kill him. He couldn't see or hear or breathe, he could only feel, he was delirious with pleasure, he was soft with relief, he fell into Kurt's arms still trembling with aftershocks, still crying, with no idea when Kurt had moved to gather him up in his warm embrace.

Kurt gave him the silence he needed until his tears finally subsided and his breath evened out. Then with his usual perfect timing, just when Blaine was aware enough to wish for it, Kurt lifted his chin and kissed him. As their lips parted Blaine opened his eyes and tried to smile at his beautiful dominant.

Kurt's eyes sparkled with mirth and self-satisfaction. "Good orgasm?" he asked.

"Ten out of ten," Blaine said, faintly, because everything including his voice was wrung out like last week's dishcloth. "Would come again." Then he let his head fall onto Kurt's chest because it was much too much work to hold it up.

He felt Kurt's torso bounce a little with suppressed laughter. "Only if you're very, very lucky."


	15. Ocean

Ocean

"Are you still floating?"

Kurt's voice was careful, whisper soft, and it tiptoed through tiny spaces in Blaine's brain, pulling his awareness ever so gently in its direction.

Blaine tried to think of an answer for him, but he felt too serene as he was to try very hard.

Later, later he would hurt, his body would ache in so many places. Kurt's hands were avoiding those places as they stroked him and each slide of warm fingers, each rise and fall of Kurt's chest, each whoosh of breath so close to Blaine's ear, buoyed him up and slid him down gentle waves of contentment.

Something poked at his lips and he opened automatically and sucked cool water, soothing relief to the throat he hadn't realized was burning.

Somewhere, there was music. It was sweet and high and familiar.

He shivered and found himself enveloped in something warm and soft. Perfect. Everything was liquid bliss.

Oh. Humming. Kurt was humming, lips pressed to the top of Blaine's head. A song . . . but he didn't have the energy to figure out what song it was. And it didn't matter. Kurt's arms were around him and he was safe, he was warm and loved and wonderful. He was perfect.

The straw came back and he took another obedient sip, then he let his head fall back on Kurt's strong chest. His lover's song lulled him, tugged him down toward the depths. It lured him to let go and sink.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed since Kurt's question, but he shook his head against the chest that pillowed it.

"I'm drowning."


	16. Passion

Passion

"Do you think we'll be like that?"

They were sitting in the dark on the glider in the Hummel back yard, Kurt nestled in Blaine's arms for a change, probably because being home again always seemed to bring out the inner teenager he tried to keep hidden most of the time. The light from the kitchen window cast night-shadows all around them and behind it Kurt could see Carole at the sink rinsing dishes and handing them off to his dad. Right before Blaine spoke they had paused mid-handoff, smiled at each other, and kissed in one swift peck.

"Of course we will," Kurt said. "Although we'll have better wardrobe."

"I'm serious, Kurt. When I'm old and you're . . . will you still . . ."

"Kiss you when we do the dishes?"

"Will you still want me? Like, _want_ me?"

Kurt sighed, because he was really comfortable stretched out on the glider with his head pillowed on Blaine's new Christmas sweater, but he sat up and turned to face his soulmate. Who really seemed to think that this was a question that needed an answer.

"Blaine. Sweetie. We're soulmates."

"I know that but –"

"And when you're old and I'm . . . in the prime of middle age, yes, I am still going to _want_ you."

Blaine gave him a little smile-frown and lowered his eyes, which kind of made Kurt _want_ him right now. "But what if I get gray hair? Or wrinkles?"

"Gray hair is distinguished. And I forbid you to get wrinkles. I've spent far too much money on moisturizer to ever allow that to happen."

This time the smile was more smile than frown. But Blaine still didn't look up. "But what if I do?"

"Oh! I know!" Kurt grabbed Blaine's hand, which forced him, finally, to raise his eyes. "I'll forbid you to get wrinkles and then if you do, I can punish you for disobedience. Five strokes for each line. With the tawse. Because really, wrinkles are inexcusable."

That, at least, earned him a full smile. "What if all my teeth fall out?"

"Well some people would consider that a bonus."

"Kurt!"

Kurt laughed and reached to stroke Blaine's cheek, twisting his fingers in the soft hair that curled around Blaine's ear. "I promise I am going to _want_ you forever. Even when you're a hundred. I promise I'll make you climb out of your wheelchair and suck my dick with your toothless mouth while I beat your ass for getting wrinkles. And I'll love every minute of it."

He pecked Blaine's lips, an identical peck to the one that had started this conversation, then settled back again as he had been, cuddled against Blaine's sweater.

"Well as long as we're clear on that," Blaine said.

"Crystal." Kurt smiled up at the stars that twinkled over their heads. The kitchen light switched off, extinguishing the shadows around them. "I will love you no matter how much you fall apart. Except . . ."

"Except what?" Blaine asked, tightening his arms around Kurt's shoulders.

"Well, if your ass goes, that's a deal breaker. Then I'll totally be trading you in for the 2080s version of Channing Tatum."

"Oh, well, of course. I completely understand."

"As long as we're clear on that."

Kurt felt Blaine's lips press a kiss to the top of his head. "Crystal."


	17. Question

Question

Kurt finished tying the rope off to the cleat on the wall and stepped back to survey his soulmate.

In many ways, this was his favorite part. There was so much possibility, and he held all of it in his own hands. Blaine was hanging from the pulley, stretched up on the very tips of his toes. He was naked, of course, his taut muscles already twitching with the strain of his position. His cock was free and upright, surging with excitement and the hope that weeks of edging and denial might come to an end tonight. His eyes were molasses-dark and already brimming with surrender, though Kurt had yet to do anything except string him up. Blaine had no idea what Kurt had planned, and Kurt knew that his brain was already spinning from one possibility to the next, each one ramping him up higher. But for Kurt this moment was like the calm before the storm. The only thing he had to think about was pleasing himself, because anything that pleased him would by definition please Blaine. And there were so very many ways he could please himself.

He loved to draw it out, this moment of infinite possibility, to heighten the anticipation for both of them. He weighed his options silently, taking a slow tour around Blaine's suspended body. So exposed. So vulnerable to whatever Kurt chose to do to him. Later, there might be a blindfold, but for now Blaine's eyes followed Kurt as far as they could as he circled. A gag, perhaps, Kurt thought as Blaine's neck craned to keep him in sight, when Blaine reached the point where he couldn't or wouldn't hold back his cries any longer.

Something on that gorgeous ass, of course, Kurt mused as he passed it. The heavy flogger, perhaps? Although he never got tired of the tawse. He hadn't expected to find such a blunt, harsh instrument so compelling, but he loved the tawse just as much as Blaine did. He loved the marks it left and the way it made his boy scream. Yes, the tawse. And he could use the flogger on Blaine's impatient cock. That produced a completely different but just as arresting sound and Kurt had long ago accepted the eroticism he found in offering relentless pain to that part of Blaine's body that most longed for pleasure.

Clamps on his nipples, certainly, and Kurt would decide in the moment whether he felt Blaine needed something light and sharp or heavy and agonizing. He'd tease them first, though, those impossibly responsive little nubs, until Blaine was writhing so hard that he lost his footing and swung freely from the ceiling. Then he could use the chain between the clamps to pull and swing Blaine harder. Blaine might cry then. Helplessness always made him cry.

Kurt raised his eyes from Blaine's chest to his face just in time to catch the kaleidoscope of emotions that his scrutiny had inspired, before Blaine pushed them all away and forced his expression back to his default submissive acceptance. But Kurt knew he'd be seeing them all again, in the course of the evening, ecstatic highs and desperate lows and everything in between. He wondered if his own expressions as they moved together through this intimate space were as familiar to Blaine as Blaine's were to him. He wondered, but now wasn't the time to ask.

Kurt circled behind Blaine again, watching Blaine crane as far as he could, until he had to give up and face forward again. He wrapped his arms around Blaine's torso – a shudder at this first contact rocked Blaine's body against his – and he stroked over those tiny nipples, again and again, until Blaine was wound up and quivering from head to foot, struggling to keep his toes on the floor.

Years ago, Kurt, in this moment before, would have been asking himself a thousand questions. Back then, each step had felt like a journey in itself, fraught with pitfalls and the possibility of failure. But that kind of uncertainty was a thing of the past. Now he was a virtuoso and his instrument was Blaine's body, his mind and his emotions. Now, Kurt only had one question on his lips as they hovered on this precipice, and he pressed a kiss to Blaine's ear and whispered it against his skin.

"Are you ready for this?"


	18. Regret

Regret

"It was all my fault."

"No, Blaine –"

"Yes. It was my idea in the first place."

Kurt tightened his arm around Blaine's blanket-wrapped shoulders and pulled him closer, until he was almost reclining on the couch, his head against Kurt's chest. He was still a little dazed – simultaneously overwhelmed and oddly numb. "I was the one who put the scarf over the lamp," he said.

"But we do that all the time. I'm the one who wanted to use the taper instead of the tea lights. It was stupid."

"You were cuffed to the bed, Blaine. How can any of it be your fault?"

A clatter of thumping and bumping from their bedroom made Kurt wince and he was glad Blaine couldn't see his face.

"All your clothes . . ."

Kurt swallowed. That was unquestionably a blow. "Well, most of them were in the other closet. I only kept –"

"Your favorites! You only kept your favorites in our bedroom." Blaine sat up, clutching the blanket tighter around himself, and stared at Kurt with such dismay that Kurt couldn't help smiling at him.

"Don't do that. I'll be fine. The Pieta fall line will be done any day, so I'll find new favorites."

"And our toys! Dear God, all the gear . . ."

"Most of that can probably be salvaged. And we can replace what can't."

Blaine's head fell back on Kurt's shoulder. "You should be mad at me."

"I told you –"

"You should punish me. I think I'd feel so much better if you punished me."

"I'm not going to punish you for an accident that was much more my fault than it was yours. The important thing is that all the safety latches worked and we're both okay."

More clattering, and then three firefighters in full gear clumped into view. Kurt couldn't suppress a shudder at the thought of what those heavy black boots had done to the runner in the hallway. The last man in line nodded to Kurt and Blaine where they huddled on the couch. "It's all out. Mostly just smoke damage anyhow. And stains from the extinguisher. Good work with that, by the way."

"Thanks," Kurt said with an attempt at a smile that he suspected came out as more of a grimace.

"The mattress will have to be replaced though. You can't sleep there tonight."

Blaine turned his face into Kurt's shoulder.

"We can't thank you enough," Kurt said. He nudged Blaine.

"Right. Thank you," Blaine said without looking up.

Kurt held him while the three firefighters and all their gear made their noisy exit. "Well I guess we're sleeping in the guest room for the time being," he said once the door had closed behind them.

Blaine groaned. "Please punish me. I'll feel so much better."

Kurt shifted so that Blaine was forced to sit up and look at him. He couldn't deny that the thought of punishing Blaine was attractive. It _would_ make Blaine feel better, he was sure. And when he thought about the things in their closet that even now must be wilting from the heat and reeking of smoke, he realized that a nice vigorous beating with the accompanying sobbing and begging for mercy would probably make him feel a lot better too. But it would also be wrong. Yes. Definitely wrong. "I told you I'm not punishing you for an accident. I don't think this is something we should deal with like that. I think we have to both accept responsibility and cope in . . . normal ways. Non-sexual ways. A bad thing happened, it sucks, now let's focus on fixing it."

Blaine hung his head in what Kurt took for capitulation. But then he said, "The blonde firefighter looked at my ass."

"What?!"

"When they first got here. In all the excitement I think my blanket slipped at one point and he most definitely looked at my ass. And I'm pretty sure he liked what he saw."

"Blaine! Why didn't you think to grab some pants?"

"Well, the bedroom was on fire." Blaine tilted his head and looked up at Kurt through his lashes in that _way_ that he knew Kurt could never resist. "Of course, I could have been more careful. I was so distracted and I wasn't paying attention and someone else got to see what's yours. And who knows what else he might have seen? I mean, it was all so confusing and I could have –"

Kurt pulled Blaine by the back of the neck into a swift, hard kiss. "Get your ass on your knees in that guest room now."

"Oh, thank God," Blaine breathed. He jumped up and made his retreat, letting the blanket fall and wiggling his bare ass brazenly as he went.

It was blatant manipulation, Kurt knew. The blanket hadn't slipped. Kurt had been so fixated on Blaine's safety and reaction that something like that could never have escaped his notice. But it wasn't like either of them would be getting any sleep soon, and it would make them both feel better. And he could tell himself he was punishing Blaine _for_ the manipulation. Yes. That would certainly make it okay.

And if a few of the strokes were really on behalf of his ruined Armani blazer and vintage silk ties, well, no one would ever know.


	19. Shift

Shift

It always happened faster for Blaine.

Sometimes Kurt envied him that. The slip from _Blaine_ to _boy_ was effortless. One moment he was kissing Kurt, whispering how excited he was that they were doing this again, how long it seemed to have been since the last time, and how grateful he was to Kurt for giving it to him, and the next he was on his knees in the corner, perfectly still, with no thought but to be available to serve. He could kneel there for hours, Kurt knew, never moving – except for the occasional shudder when his arousal momentarily overcame him. He needed nothing, truly, expected nothing. That was the whole point for him. And the longer Kurt left him there and gave the appearance of ignoring him the more turned on he became, until his cock was bouncing and leaking and doing its level best to break the unbreakable bars of its prison.

It was more of a process for Kurt.

He picked up a magazine, as he always did, and pretended to read. His brain had a system it needed to follow, he'd learned, so he stared at random pictures of perfect models while he mulled over various possibilities for the weekend, ultimate tossing each away, because that wasn't the point at all. Any of the variety of possible activities would satisfy Blaine, or none of them. He knew what Blaine wanted from the weekend. He only wanted Kurt to use him, without a single thought for Blaine's own pleasure or need. So he let a weekend's worth of thoughts of Blaine's pleasure and need pass through his head without comment and turned a page to keep up the illusion that he was reading.

Then of course he had to do inventory. One last mental check of supplies, safety measures, and incidentals. He'd already made sure that all the toys and implements he might want were clean and in good repair, and that the apartment was stocked with a weekend's worth of food and drink for Blaine to serve him, and that they had enough clean sheets and towels to protect against or clean up from any activity that might take his fancy. But it helped him to be sure, before he let himself go.

Then he actually read an article. Or at least part of one. To create a space between _Kurt_ and _master_.

And only after that, still holding the magazine, did he let himself contemplate his boy.

And that was when it happened. Kurt never noticed the exact moment; it was gradual, as he listened to the slow rise and fall of Blaine's breathing, the twitching cock a distraction in the corner of his eye. Carefully but inexorably as glacial drift, his lover, his soulmate, Blaine, began to blur and spread, metamorphosing into his boy, his slave, Blaine, waiting to serve his every whim, existing to fulfill his desires, longing for nothing more than to be allowed to serve, to submit, to offer his body up to his master's pleasure. And somewhere in that process Kurt changed as well, coming out the other side fully formed as master and ready to enjoy his devoted slave in any way he chose.

He put his magazine down then and looked at his boy, kneeling in perfect submission with his eyes downcast and his arms folded behind his back. His struggling cock was angry red and his balls below it pulled tight and hard against the ring of the cage. It had to be excruciating, Kurt thought. Good. He loved the way his boy suffered. It was compelling and erotic and Kurt felt his own dick stir and rise as he watched his boy wait for him.

"Come here, boy," he finally said.

As smoothly as if he'd been expecting his master to speak at that exact moment, Blaine leaned forward, unfolded his arms, and crawled across the room until he was kneeling at Kurt's feet. He kept his eyes down and recrossed his arms in his formal position.

Kurt nudged at his captured cock with his shoe. Blaine tried so hard to keep still, but his breath caught with an audible hitch.

"So desperate," Kurt murmured. "That must hurt like hell."

"It does, master."

Hearing Blaine name him out loud was the final piece of their complicated puzzle. The picture was complete.

"Perfect. You may serve me."

"Thank you master." Blaine spoke it like a vow and had Kurt's cock out in a flash. He folded his arms obediently back again before he leaned forward to take his master into his throat, sucking down to the root. He moaned around the intrusion, already abandoning himself to the beauty of his master's desire for him, his own need forgotten even as his caged cock resumed its throbbing dance.

Which, his master thought as the dark head bobbed up and down and coaxed the embers of his desire into burning flame, was exactly as it should be.


	20. Time

Time

"Blaine! Blaine! Blaine!"

"No! Someone else go!" Blaine was laughing, but he turned his face to hide in Kurt's shoulder.

Kurt smiled at their friends and shrugged a _what can you do?_ but he could tell that no one was going to let Blaine off the hook so easily.

"Don't be such a baby!" Nathan said, flinging a cushion at Blaine. "If I can talk about coming in my pants from blowing Bobby Johnson in the boy's bathroom, you can tell your own sordid first time story."

"Blaine! Blaine! Blaine!" the chant rose again.

It was late and they'd all been drinking wine and talking for hours. It was Bruce, deceptively sweet puppy Bruce, who'd suggested they all tell their first time dominating or submitting stories. Kurt wasn't worried for himself – his story was simple and completely un-embarrassing, at least to people who already knew about their age difference. Blaine seemed to feel differently and he shook his head against Kurt's chest again.

"Kurt, make him tell," Jack insisted. "How bad can it be?"

Kurt wrapped his arms around Blaine and squeezed in solidarity. "Only if he wants to."

Blaine sighed and raised his head. "Fine. I'll tell you."

There were cheers all around.

"Okay, it was when I was at Dalton –"

"Wait!" Nathan interrupted. "This isn't about Kurt? Are you going to ruin my fantasy of you falling to your knees for a very confused three-year-old in footie pajamas?!"

"As if Kurt would ever wear footie pajamas, even at three," Lars objected.

Everyone laughed, and Kurt sent the pillow Nathan had thrown at Blaine winging back at Nathan's head with perfect aim.

"It was a boy named Jason Tracey. He was tall and graceful and completely gorgeous –"

"Awww! Our Blainey has a type!" Lars said, winking at Kurt.

"Would you let me finish? So I mooned over him for pretty much forever, and he must have noticed because one day he stopped me when I was walking into the dining room and he pulled me aside and he said, 'I'll have a turkey club sandwich and a coke,' and then he just walked to his table and left me there. So I –"

"BROUGHT HIM A SANDWICH!" six voices shouted in unison, dissolving into more gales of laughter.

"And you jerked off to that for months, didn't you darling?" Lars wrapped his hand around a pretend dick and made the time-honored gesture. "I'll have . . . a sandwich . . . and a coke . . . _oh God, yes master!"_

"Okay!" Kurt had to raise his voice to be heard over the general glee. "You said first time, well that was his first time."

"You're just glad you didn't have to hear about him sucking somebody else's cock," Sean said, flashing a grimace at Nathan.

"Look on the bright side," Nathan smiled at his boyfriend. "You can punish me for it later. Kurt's turn!"

Nathan sent the cushion back across the room to Kurt, who caught it neatly and tucked it behind his back. "Easy," he said. "I went to Blaine's office and told him to take off his cuff and he did."

There was a chorus of boos and _more!_ and _details!_

"That's what happened, sorry," Kurt said.

Blaine sat up all the way and took Kurt's hand. "Can I tell it?" he asked.

Kurt didn't see what else there was to tell, but he nodded anyhow.

Blaine smiled at him and turned to face their friends. "So there I was, twenty-seven, and terrified because this kid just stood up and announced himself to me, after everything I'd been through and all the things I'd done, this sixteen-year-old kid." He smiled at Kurt again, fondly, his eyes full of memories. "I was hiding away in this hole of an office and there's a knock on the door. And when I open it, I see my name, on his wrist, bare, right there in the hallway where anyone could have seen . . ."

Someone somewhere whined, but Kurt couldn't be bothered to take his eyes off Blaine to see who it was.

" . . . and I was a mess, I was so scared and so angry, but when he said that, _take off your cuff_ , it went right through me, like no command ever had before. And then he told me to be honest, because he was that good, he let me yell and rant at him but then the minute he was done with it – I was on my knees, I didn't even know how he did I just went down. It was pure instinct I guess. He . . ." Blaine paused for a moment, still smiling at Kurt, and everything that had happened that afternoon passed silently between them. ". . . he showed me just a glimpse of what we could have together and what I'd be giving up if I let my fear and doubt control me. It wasn't perfect for us, after that, and we still had lessons we needed to learn, but that was the foundation. It was the most important moment of my life."

"Well fuck," Nathan drawled as Kurt surged forward to kiss Blaine hard and deep. "Now I'm going to have to come up with a _much_ better story."


	21. Underneath

Underneath

Blaine was in so much trouble.

"I'll let you decide," Kurt had whispered in his ear, then he'd scooted to the end of the bed where he now sat, fondling Blaine's balls while he waited. And if that was supposed to give Blaine space to think, it was failing miserably.

His cock knew what it wanted, unquestionably, especially with Kurt's hands so close to it, so full of possibilities. Being inside Kurt was a rare pleasure, intense in a way that burned just this side of unbearable. Being inside Kurt while he was bound tight to the bed under his dominant and unable to thrust in any meaningful way – being helpless while Kurt effectively fucked himself on Blaine's cock – was the stuff of agonizing fantasy. Being inside Kurt and not being allowed to come was unbearable. But it had been twelve days since Blaine's last orgasm and there was every chance Kurt _would_ let him come. And exploding to long-awaited completion with his cock bound by Kurt's tight, hot flesh was, as far as Blaine was concerned, the pinnacle of ecstasy. If he knew he was going to get to come he'd choose that every time.

But Kurt was never going to make it that easy for him.

Being fucked by Kurt was, on the other hand, a regular occurrence but one that Blaine never tired of. Spread under his lover with his legs wide, the helpless vessel for Kurt's desire, that was without question his place, his fate, the ultimate fulfillment of his sexual destiny, and if that sounded a bit effusive even in his head, well Blaine was not at all above getting a little poetical about being tied down and taken. There was nothing in the universe that could compare to the way he felt when Kurt's cock slid into him and reshaped his body in its own image. He was born to be fucked by Kurt. And Kurt was born to fuck him; his inspiration was infinite. It was always different, every time something new, some twist Blaine never saw coming. Some new way to enhance Blaine's sense of subjugation. He was, honestly, in awe of Kurt's brilliance. Also effusive, he knew, but the God's honest truth.

"I'm waiting," Kurt prompted. He emphasized his impatience by rolling Blaine's balls against each other in their sac.

Blaine had to wait to stop moaning before he could speak. "I'm trying," he finally said. "It's not an easy decision you know."

"Well if you can't make a choice I'll just have to make it for you." Kurt abandoned Blaine's balls and crawled up the bed, his eyes burning into Blaine's, until he was straddling Blaine's chest, his hard cock just inches from Blaine's lips. "Maybe I'll ride you until I get tired of it and _then_ fuck you. With your legs still tied because I like it nice and tight."

Blaine whimpered.

"And you're definitely not allowed to come." Kurt smirked at him and reached for the lube.

Oh, he was in so, so much trouble. But that was just as it should be, he thought, as Kurt slid down his cock in tiny, teasing increments that made Blaine gasp for breath and struggle for self-control. There was such beauty in Kurt's unwavering authority. Even when he topped, Blaine was always firmly and – yes he knew it was effusive - ecstatically on the bottom.


	22. Vow

Vow

Kurt didn't plan it. He didn't even realize what he'd done until Blaine was on the leather sofa next to him with his ears flushed pink with . . . arousal? Humiliation? Probably both, if he was being perfectly honest.

Kurt didn't plan it but they'd just come off a very intense weekend of play and the edges between master and boyfriend apparently hadn't quite gelled yet. One minute he was sitting on the couch wishing Blaine was next to him instead of a few feet away deep in conversation with one of the other Ph.D. candidates from his department, and the next he was saying "Blaine" in _that_ tone of voice, and jerking his head toward the empty seat next to him.

Blaine only froze for a microsecond – no one else would have even noticed it. He smiled at his companion and murmured something then sauntered across the room and settled next to Kurt on the sofa. He was perfectly composed; only his ears gave him away.

Kurt was more than a little shocked himself. And yet . . . he'd liked watching Blaine respond so quickly to his command in front of everyone. He'd more than liked it. It didn't matter that barely anyone at the party had noticed it, it had happened, and Kurt wanted more. Blaine eyes meeting his were wary but not alarmed, so Kurt held up his glass between them.

"I need more wine."

Blaine nodded. "Okay," he said, reaching for the glass.

Kurt held onto it and raised an eyebrow. He watched Blaine's trembling inhale and challenged him with his eyes.

"Yes sir," Blaine said, quietly, but loud enough that he could be heard, if anyone happened to be listening.

Kurt surrendered the glass and Blaine rose and headed toward the makeshift bar. His ears had gone full red, and the flush was starting to bleed down his neck as well. Kurt's belly was hot with desire, watching his boy obey him in front of everyone. No one was actually paying any attention, of course, but he knew, and Blaine knew, and that, apparently, was enough.

While Blaine was gone another student plopped down in the armchair next to Kurt's sofa and introduced himself. They were deep in the requisite "how did you end up at this party" conversation – Kurt with only half of his brain as the other half was busy praying he hadn't pushed Blaine too far, too fast – when Blaine returned with Kurt's glass full of red wine.

His eyes widened when he saw the other student sitting so close, another tiny signal that Kurt was sure only he noticed. Kurt smiled at Blaine as he approached but he didn't speak. Whatever happened next was up to Blaine.

Blaine stopped in front of Kurt and though he angled himself slightly away from the other young man, he stayed on his feet as he handed Kurt his glass.

"Thank you," Kurt said. He tried to make it sound like a dismissal.

Blaine stood still, not taking the out Kurt had offered him. There was too much white in his eyes, like he was on the verge of panic, but he held Kurt's gaze and asked, "Is there anything else I can get you . . . sir?" His voice shook like a leaf in a gale and for a moment he closed his eyes and hung his head, gasping sharp breaths in a familiar way that Kurt couldn't quite put his finger on, until it hit him like a sledgehammer between the eyes.

Blaine was trying not to come.

"No." Kurt had to keep his reply short so his own voice didn't break as badly as Blaine's. Because they were deep, deep in uncharted territory and he was sure that Blaine needed him to be in control now more than he ever had. He tilted his head toward the empty half of the sofa. "Sit."

Blaine sat. He folded his hands in his lap and lowered his eyes to the floor.

Not sure what he was supposed to do next, Kurt turned back to the student in the armchair, who he only just now realized was wearing a submissive's cuff on his right wrist. And sort of looking like he was trying not to come too.

"So you were saying?" Kurt said, as if nothing at all unusual had happened. The boy stammered out a reply but Kurt was only listening with half his brain. The other half was praying that Blaine, sitting in silent submission beside him, wasn't going to kill him as soon as they got home.

"Swear," Blaine panted.

Kurt opened his eyes and found to his surprise that they'd actually made it all the way to the bed, although the decorative bedspread and shams were most definitely underneath him and not out of harm's way on the chair as they usually were. They were also both still dressed, although all the important bits were exposed. A trail of discarded outerwear was scattered between the door and the bed.

"What?"

Blaine's face hovered into view above him, out of focus but obviously demanding. He didn't seem to care in the slightest that Kurt was still trying to recover from having his brains sucked out through his dick.

"Swear. Solemn vow. Unbreakable." Blaine kissed him hard and Kurt moaned, because his cock was trying to twitch to life again and that was so, so not a good thing.

"Can't this wait at least until the feeling comes back in my legs?" he protested when Blaine's lips released him.

"No. Now."

"Pushy," Kurt admonished, but he had to admit he was finding pushy Blaine very compelling. He wrapped his arms around Blaine's chest and flipped them so that he was on top, his soft cock pressing against Blaine's still very much hard one. "Okay. I, Kurt Hummel, do solemnly swear that I will find more ways to dominate you in public."

"And never hold back . . ." Blaine prompted.

"And never hold back because I'm afraid I might be pushing you too hard. And always take just what I want from you no matter who else might be around."

Blaine moaned and thrust against Kurt's cock, which was definitely getting hard again.

"You promise? Really?"

"Blaine, you trying not to come in front of a room full of people is one of the hottest things I've ever seen. And that's a really high bar. I guarantee it's going to happen again. Is that enough of a promise?"

Blaine made a show of considering, then shook his head. "I feel like we need to seal it somehow. Like a blood vow or something."

Kurt grinned down at him. "I have a better idea." He scooted to the side enough to wrap a hand around Blaine's straining cock and pumped hard and fast. Blaine's body went rigid under him.

"Oh, God, no Kurt, I'm too close, I'm going to come . . ." Blaine moaned.

"Yes you are." Kurt made it a command and always obedient Blaine was only too happy to comply.


	23. Wish

Wish

When the last of the boxes had been carried to the moving van, when his beloved piano had been carefully wrapped and eased down the stairs, when the last bit of evidence of his years of existence in New York had been wiped away and his apartment was nothing but rooms again, just like the day he'd moved in, with no trace of _him_ left in them, Blaine set the key on the kitchen counter, shouldered his backpack, switched off the last light and closed the door, locking himself out. He leaned against the door and let himself breathe. Two flights down to the street, one cab ride, a hotel room for the night, then an early plane back to Ohio, into the empty and undefined space that was now his future. He'd come to New York with so much hope, never imagining that it wouldn't give him everything he'd ever wanted. That was how it always happened in the movies – magical New York, city of dreams, king of the hill, top of the heap. He laughed, a short, bitter sound, and shook his head against the door. It wasn't New York's fault. If the city hadn't given him everything he'd wanted, it was only because, really, there was just one thing that mattered to him. All the things he'd accomplished and all the opportunities he'd been offered hadn't meant a thing because the only thing he'd truly cared about was the one thing New York couldn't give him. Which was wrong; he knew it was wrong to hijack his whole life because fate wasn't cooperating with him. And that was why he had to leave.

He pushed off the door with a sigh, but his feet didn't take him down the stairs like he'd planned. Instead he found himself going up, up five full flights to the ancient wood plank door that led out onto the roof. Well why not? One last time.

The sun was just setting, casting the kind of light that turned New York from a dirty-guttered, crowded megalopolis to the fairy-tale romance city of An Affair to Remember and When Harry Met Sally. When he'd first moved in Blaine had loved to come up here at just this time and look out over the skyline bathed in gentle color until the last of the light faded away. He'd be so young then and so full of hope. It had seemed impossible that he wouldn't finally find what he was looking for in such a beautiful place. But that had been years ago. Now, though the city looked just as brilliant in the slanting pink rays, Blaine knew that for him those promises were empty. Tonight was just a goodbye.

He turned back to the door and the crescent moon caught his eye, hanging low on the horizon framed by a gap in the nearby buildings. And just below it a star – Venus, he knew – the only star in the evening sky. The first star.

 _Star light star bright . . ._

It was automatic, but he stopped himself before he could finish.

His grandfather Monaghan had taught him that rhyme, when he was only a tiny boy. He'd told him how he used to wish on the first star – always the same wish, for the person whose name he couldn't even read on his wrist. And little Blaine – even then such a romantic – had taken that story very much to heart. Whenever he caught the first star of the evening he'd repeated his grandfather's rhyme, but he'd never actually wished for anything, no matter how badly he longed for the latest movie action figure or complicated Lego set. He knew what he was supposed to wish for and so on the evening of his first full day marked he'd stayed outside as the sun began to set and waited for it, scarcely able to breathe. And when Venus had finally appeared he'd said it for the first time, out loud though in a whisper, sending up his wish powered, he thought, by his years and years of almost-wishes.

 _Kurt Hummel_.

Every night, at first, but eventually the shine had worn off and Blaine had stopped watching for the first star every night. Still, when he caught it, the wish was always the same. Over and over again, for so many years.

He stared at that star for a long time, until the sky darkened and others joined it, faint in the city glow. Then he opened the door and began the long descent to the street.

"You never told me that story," Kurt said.

Blaine looked out at the other rooftops, just turning pink in the setting sun. They'd climbed to the roof of their new building to escape the heat and curled up together on the rattan love seat somebody had conveniently dragged up there.

"I guess I don't really like to talk about before I had you, now that I have you."

He felt Kurt's head nod against his.

"Aren't you going to ask me if I made the wish?" Blaine asked.

"I don't have to. I know you made the wish."

"What? How can you know that?"

"You're my Blaine," Kurt said softly. "You never really gave up hope. If you had, we wouldn't be here right now."

Blaine snuggled into Kurt's chest and watched the sun slip behind a taller building, casting their side of the roof into blessed shadow. If he turned a little to the left he knew he'd see the moon hanging low with the sparkle of Venus below it. But he didn't turn. He was perfect just where he was.


	24. Yesterday

Yesterday

The lights were all off when Blaine came down the stairs and not a creature was stirring – not even Kurt. He was reclined on the old overstuffed Hummel sofa, silhouetted by the dying firelight and the twinkles from the Christmas tree. When he noticed Blaine hovering on the last step he held out his arms in an invitation that Blaine was only too happy to accept.

"Is Willa finally asleep?"

Blaine hummed an affirmative as he settled in on the couch with Kurt. "She made me tell her three stories before she'd let me leave."

"Well you are her favorite uncle."

"And you're Annie's, so we're even."

"Annie has excellent taste for a three-year-old."

Blaine laughed against Kurt's chest. "Did Finn and Nic go up?"

"Are you kidding? With us on kid duty? They flung those presents under the tree then disappeared like my dad when he hears the opening credits of The Sound of Music. I had to rearrange everything, of course. Santa has a reputation to keep up."

"Well you can hardly blame them. You know the girls will be awake before dawn."

This time it was Kurt who hummed a little yes. Blaine twined their fingers together and pulled Kurt's arm more snugly around his waist. The platinum band on his right ring finger clicked against its mate on Kurt's left. "It is weird to have Finn and Nicole and the kids here, instead of your dad and Carole?" he asked.

"A little," Kurt said. "But my dad's so happy at Villa Gardens. The antique car club alone – I'm amazed Carole ever sees him." He twisted a little under Blaine and reached for his phone on the coffee table. "She texted me by the way. They'll be here at seven. So we have to hold the monsters off from the presents until then."

"I hope she makes French toast casserole."

Kurt laughed and held up his phone so Blaine could see the screen.

 _And tell Blaine I'm bringing the French toast casserole!_

"She loves me," Blaine sighed.

"Are you kidding? You're her favorite son."

"No. She's just trying to make up for the fact that my parents are in Los Angeles this year."

Kurt hummed again, and for a while they were silent, holding each other and watching the lights twinkle.

"I'm so happy," Blaine finally said.

"Well I hope so."

"I'm serious! God, it seems like just yesterday we walked through that door together for the first time. I was scared out of my mind."

"You?! I thought I was going to throw up."

"But look at us now. And in fifteen more years tonight's going to feel like yesterday. And fifteen after that –"

"Okay, slow down, Father Time," Kurt said. He tugged on Blaine's hand, pulling him around so they were lying chest-to-chest, face-to-face. "I have lot of plans for all those years, so how about we actually live them before you start getting nostalgic for them?"

"Okay." Blaine smiled at Kurt and Kurt smiled back. It was one of what Kurt would call their puppy love moments, but Blaine didn't care that he was technically too old for things like puppy love. He bumped his nose against Kurt's, which made Kurt giggle like the sixteen-year-old he never seemed to be able to completely banish, no matter how hard he tried. A fact for which Blaine was constantly grateful. "I'm so happy," he said again, fervently, because he really, really wanted Kurt to understand.

Kurt kissed him with soft and achingly gentle lips.

"Merry Christmas, Blaine."

Blaine answered him with his own kiss, then tucked his head under Kurt's chin and whispered against his skin. "Merry Christmas."


End file.
